The Tsardom of Russia
The Russian Empire, sometimes misguidedly referred to as the Tsardom of Russia (which ended in 1721), was a monarchial and autocratic state and one of the most prominent world powers through multiple centuries. It has history on Earth and Orbis, both of which are addressed in this article. Earth History This section pertains life on Earth, for Orbis history, see below. Officially founded by Peter the Great (Peter I) in 1721, the empire arguably existed for a significantly longer time. His reforms set the stage for Russia to become a much more powerful state. Russia continued to grow, rarely interrupted with incompetent leaders. However autocratic and unloving to their subjects, its leaders created a prosperous country. Russia held firm through harder times, such as the Napoleonic Wars and the Crimean War, always becoming stronger afterward. In 1894, Alexander III was succeeded by his son, Nicholas II, as Tsar of Russia. Nicholas II Nicholas II ascended the throne in 1894. He was known as Nicholas the Bloody ''to his rivals and has been venerated ''Saint Nicholas the Martyr by the Russian Orthodox Church. Nicholas' reign saw Russia transition from a world economic and military superpower to near full collapse. He lead Russia through the Russo-Japanese War and, its most troubling time, the First World War. Circumstances were to great to rule effectively, so he was seen as an incompetent leader - losing his support, thus there were three uprisings. He violently suppressed the 1905 Revolution, which in turn caused a further loss in support. The February Revolution saw his abdication. This culminated in the October Revolution, which led to the foundation of the Soviet Union and the shooting of Nicholas II and his family. Orbis History '-' Re-Foundation and Early History The Tsardom of Russia was originally founded during the Speed Round (July 2014), as a member of the United Independent Nations. After The Great Reset of August 2014 (which ended the Speed Round, on August 5th), the Tsardom of Russia was re-founded, as was the rest of Orbis, making Russia ''the oldest possible age on Orbis. Its re-foundation saw the joining of a different alliance, The Supreme Gentlemen (TSG). Nicholas II was a member for only a few weeks before ascending to a government position (The Gentleman of Enlistment), replacing Despartainian (now SAI-40) after he left for The Atlas Confederacy for his lack of faith in the potential for TSG. '-' '''The Supreme Gentlemen Nicholas II sought to better his alliance with his new government powers. Much of Orbis was belittled by the reset that August, thus although The Supreme Gentlemen (TSG) was small, so was the rest of the world. It had then resided as the 7th alliance in the alliance leaderboards. Nicholas II increased recruiting efforts, which lead to doubling alliance membership and quadrupling TSG forum membership. Many ideas and reforms proposed by Nicholas II were passed with a unanimous vote. '------- Effects of War The War of Debatable Aggression caused a decline in allegiance and faith in TSG leadership; upon Nicholas II's loss of faith, he secretly proposed a splinter alliance. He and Andrew Ryan worked the alliance structure out and slowly recruited a group of people. The alliance's foundation kept being pushed back, as they felt that the circumstances were never quite right to leave TSG. Novemeber 1st, 2014, The Tsardom of Russia began to increase its economic power. The'' Purple Scare ''caused a major rift and massive rise in tensions on the world stage, thus Nicholas II wanted his countrymen to be prepared for whatever was to become of Orbis in, what was then, the current crisis and for future crises. On November 28th, Han, leader of the Furkan Khanate of Rose, left his alliance and declared war upon multiple top countries of The Supreme Gentlemen. Through joint action of these countries and three Rose members (Pubstomper, CMDR_Adama, and Codonian), Han was defeated. By the increase in military expenditure stated above, the initial attacks from Han were fended off well. Nicholas II was one of few to defeat Han. This was the first great test of Nicholas II's military and it was a success. ''------- Decline of TSG'' When the Marionette War occurred, major components of the TSG government left in order to found the New Shrek Order (NSO) (which later became the Rothschilds). This set the collapse of TSG in motion as not only was there an internal separatist group lead by Nicholas II, but there was also one lead by Matt. These groups eventually formed the same alliance given the lack of success of Matt's separatist movement. '- The Elysian League' For more on the alliance: The Elysian League Since the War of Debatable Aggression (mid-October, 2014), Nicholas II had been working on an alliance behind the scenes with Andrew Ryan. As of the second of January, 2015, The Elysian League (TEL) was founded. It instantly passed half of all other alliances and was no. 18 of 62 alliances on its second day, still not even having all of its members which included multiple more top 100 countries. After 14 days, it found its way into the top ten. Before the month was over, TEL was permanently in the top ten after constant change of rank with the Celestial Union, Brotherhood of the Clouds, and The European Empire (which became Paradoxia, now Terradoxia). ''------- Syndicate - FSA War'' Nicholas still had information relayed to him via a small number of dispersed members of The Supreme Gentlemen (TSG). One of which, Baltimore, went to the Frontier Sort Alliance (FSA). Nicholas' confidants kept their alliances' integrity by not giving Nicholas sensitive information of their governments' doings. However, coercive things did happen across Orbis in this era of its history with link to Nicholas II. FSA was a universally hated alliance and horridly unorganized, Baltimore realized this and held little allegiance to FSA. He messaged Nicholas II and formulated a plan. He convinced his government to let him found a splinter alliance, United Sort Alliance (USA), from which he planned to attack FSA and bring it to collapse after he grew USA large enough. All of this was with the secret backing of Nicholas II. Private investments were given to Baltimore to fund his alliance, plans, and future war by Nicholas and Mussolini. The future war on FSA was, indeed, a civil war, but USA was to be backed by TEL. However, the FSA-tS War brought about the collapse of both FSA and USA - as detailed in the FSA article. To this day, Orbis has little idea of Nicholas II's impact on global affairs from January to May, 2015. Information on the FSA-tS war is the only disclosed information of backroom deals conducted by Nicholas. Although not hated, most thought very little of TEL, as demonstrated by the Politics & War Radio Show. ''------- Guardian Scare'' On January 24th, 2015, Cuzzelle (member of TSG for a short time), leader of Merrifield and member of Guardian, leaked sensitive Guardian information. This was specific information detailing a plan for Guardian to declare war on the Rothschilds. Some members of the Rothschilds (specifically the founders of TSG) seeked asylum in TEL. A very large government debate ensued. If TEL harbored them, then the alliance would be put at risk to be attacked by Guardian as retribution. Nicholas sanctioned their asylum. Within four hours, tensions rose and all harbored individuals were immediately exiled without warning. This, in conjunction with Cuzzelle seeking to become a member of TEL, allowed tensions with Guardian to rise to an unprecedented level in TEL's history. Because of this, Nicholas fervently implored his government to deny Cuzzelle's membership. Guardian's diplomat to TEL (and also former TSG member), Rex Patricius, spat harrassment at Cuzzelle over the leaks, which Nicholas intervened in. This culminated when Nicholas confronted Prefontaine (then leader of Guardian) via IRC in request for a new diplomat, which resulted in Nicholas being banned from the Guardian IRC. Now cut off from further negotiations, Guardian was unpredictable. No attack ever came, but it served as a reminder of TEL's military inefficiency. Upon leaking, Cuzzelle was exiled from Guardian and was attacked. In total, Merrifield received 17 missiles. On January 31st, 2015, Cuzzelle was granted official membership. Cuzzelle integrated into the TEL community well, and now Cuzzelle and Nicholas are close friends. ''------- Cessation of TEL'' From late February to April, many changes came to TEL. Ace, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and former member of Rose, resigned to go to Sigma, a GPA splinter alliance. Nicholas proposed a government reform bill, which would completely change the structure of the government. The bill was passed and Nicholas was the only one to keep his position. Aleccs assumed the position as co-leader (or Diarch). Ruling together, several reforms were made. The grave inefficiency of TEL's military prompted several of the reforms. About ten members were ousted (those with the slowest growth and talked the least) and tighter military requirements were among the first to be done. Nearing mid-April, Aleccs gave a proposal to The Syndicate to have TEL merge into it. After roughly a week of deliberation, the merge took place. '-' The Syndicate Before The Elysian League merged into The Syndicate, Syndicate was a triumvirate. To accommodate the government of TEL, positions were shuffled and a new ministry was created, making Syndicate's government into a quadrumvirate. Military was, before, in combination, ran along side Internal Affairs in one ministry under Roy Mustang. Military (or MilCom), was formed into a new ministry to be headed by Nicholas II. TEL's Minister of Defense, Boony, became Nicholas' deputy for this new ministry. Together, they went straight to work on a series of alliance announcements, military reviews, and new stipulations on stockpiles and minimum military requirements to help military preparedness. ''------- First Great War'' On May 19th, Guardian, Mensa HQ, and Seven Kingdoms declared war on Viridian Entente (an ally of The Syndicate). Two days afterward, the treaty with VE was honoured and war was declared back upon Guardian, leaving other alliances (15 total, including The Syndicate, as detailed in the article: First Great War) to be delegated to different fronts as well as the Guardian front. United Purple Nations (UPN) and The Syndicate worked closely in challenging Guardian. A target list was drafted by Partisan and Boony, and Nicholas II and Boony worked on The Syndicate's military through aforementioned means. About the middle of June, a month since the war's inception, it ended. ''------- First Interwar Period'' After the war, Nicholas' government activity drastically fell. On July 14th, he abdicated his position of Director of Acquisitions in favour of his subordinate - Boony. The official statement read, "As of Bastille Day, July 14th, I officially abdicate my office of Director of Acquisitions in favour of my officially lesser, but truly greater, counterpart - Boony. In this motion, I implore two things: (1) That my new position be that of Boony's current office - insofar that he and I merely switch offices. (2) Have a person readily chosen to fill my new office given I fully resign, for as of right now, not even I know my next move in Orbis." For the sake of efficiency, Nicholas was given the position of advisor; at which point, an application process had begun to select a new person to fill Boony's original office, eventually being given to Zed. Through complicated events, nearing the end of July, The Syndicate withdrew from Paragon with heightened tensions; albeit, war was averted with the remaining member alliances of the coalition (Rose and VE). Vanguard took Syndicate's place in the bloc. Syndicate then moved to allying Mensa HQ, adding that it had already allied Guardian post-war, a new bloc was quickly formed which rivalled Paragon. '-------' Second Great War On the 21st of August, 2015, the Second Great War broke out with Rose declaring upon The Syndicate. Leading up to the declaration of war, Nicholas had been accidentally left access to a coalition IRC channel of Rose, VE, and Vanguard. Nicholas took logs of their war deliberations over the course of two days and gave them to the rest of Syndicate's government (seen here). Even though this was a follow-up on the First Great War, the factions and participants had changed quite a bit. The Tsardom of Russia had taken large hits. Its steel stockpiles had been so used up from manufacturing war machines, that there was none left by the time war was declared, putting Russia's war effort in turmoil. Its land forces had been quickly destroyed, a missile was launched upon the city of Riga, and three nuclear bombs were detonated in the cities of: Moscow, Sevastopol, and Kazan. Reparations for The Tsardom of Russia exceeded 110,000,000. Roughly 80m was allocated by the alliance government. At a point near the 15th to 20th of September, a full month after the outset of war, Russia had been built to its pre-war capacity. Little peacetime military was being kept after the war, only 50 planes. Greater efforts were made to have an even larger stockpile for the next large-scale conflict. For reference, for the Second Great War, over 200,000 food had been stockpiled. The war knocked Russia far out of the top 100 nations, and Russia currently has trouble, even bigger than its pre-war state, staying within the top 100. '-------' Third Great War Only one month after the end of the Second Great War, a new Great War began. Russia was late to begin war preparation, in fact, it was several days later than other members of The Syndicate. By the time the Third Great War began, October 15th, 2015, Russia had near one-third the size of its opponents militaries. No counter-attacks were conducted and all Russian forces were destroyed before the first day was over. To save resources, no more military was built for the whole war. Damages quickly exceeded 100,000,000, just as they did in the Second Great War. The lack of military costs swelled Russia's coffers and by the time peace was declared the state had enough money to rebuild itself fully from day one. '------''- Second Interwar Period' As the rest of The Syndicate was in the process of rebuilding, on the 24th of November, 2015, Russia began a new project entitled "''Resource Tsar" - a brokerage firm exclusive to Syndicate members for manufactured resources, ran off of the IRC channel #resource_tsar. Later, on the 30th, Russia built its first nuclear power plant. The conversion from entirely coal to nuclear power coincided with the construction of the 88 million dollar city Samarkand. To build 14 nuclear plants and build the new found city, Russia took successive loans from Partisan and AunVa. The upfront costs were great, but because of Russia's enormous income, all loans were paid off in three days' time. Nearing the end of 2015, Russia shut down its "Resource Tsar" project seeing that it was unprofitable. On the 23rd of December, the city of Tbilisi was founded. To raise the necessary funds, 32,000 tons of munitions were sold and three loans of nine million each were taken. After repaying the loans, work began on continuing the exploration of nuclear power. So, a nuclear research facility was built on the 12th of January, 2016 and a nuclear warhead was promptly manufactured afterward. The Tsardom of Russia was now capable of nuclear warfare. ''------- 168 Day War and Aftermath'' By this point in time - as Russia neared 570 days in age - (January and February, 2016), Nicholas had drastically dropped off with tending to his country and paying attention to his alliance's inner-workings. He simply did the bare minimum and talked to no one. Once the 168 Day War began, The Syndicate had the Rose-front, so Russia declared upon Rio Grande (led by Lansquenete). Russia won this engagement, but was promptly declared upon by Aenir of BEPU, Emmad of Tazewell, and emperor666 of hobotown (all from UPN) - losing each engagement. This was the most devastating war for the Russian Empire. Each of 15 cities went from 2,000 infrastructure to an average of 500. Nicholas, caring much less at this point for his country, only rebuilt his cities to 1,500 infrastructure and sat on millions upon millions of Russian rubles not wishing to do anything. '-' The End of an Era As the Tsardom of Russia became the age of 593 days, Nicholas officially declared to his comrades that he would retire. He declared that Russia would empty its stockpiles in favor of The Syndicate: $115,000,000 rubles, 145,000 tons of food, 8,100 coal, 500, oil, 130 uranium, 17,250 lead, 10,250 iron, 500 bauxite, 16,500 gasoline, 27,750 munitions, 7,750 steel, and 13,250 aluminum. At its height, Russia was producing nearly $6,000,000, 1,000 tons of munitions, 600 steel, 200 gasoline, and 200 aluminum per day. It had the arms stockpile, iron dome, iron works, missile launch pad, and nuclear research facility national projects. Russia, and its friends, have had an extreme impact on the political environment and history of Orbis. Had Russia not existed to form The Elysian League, The Syndicate would not have been propelled to its global position as early on as it had. Wars and coalitions would have been formed differently without The Syndicate as a global superpower. Had Russia not existed, the FSA-tS War would have gone differently, as the United Sort Alliance was backed by Nicholas. Had Russia not existed, Rose's plans in the Second Great War would not have been leaked. Had Russia not existed, Orbis would probably be a little different. Nicholas II left his mark upon Orbis, and will do so again. Nicholas plans to return to Orbis in the future (presently written on the 20th of March, 2016) - likely under a different historical name -- which he did later that same year (here). Upon Nicholas declaring his retirement, Partisan (the "snek") said of it: "[it is] the end of an era," and Manthrax: "You left a mark [on Orbis]." As Nicholas II, Emperor of All the Russias, departed St. Petersburg en route for Alexander Palace -- his anthem played. The Russian Empire withered away behind him. History of Government Experience * (TSG) Minister of Recruitment - "Gentleman of Enlistment" * (TSG) Minister of Foreign Affairs - "Gentleman of Foreign Affairs" * ** (TEL) Co-Leader - "Diarch" * ** (TEL) Minister of Foreign Affairs - "Minister of Foreign Affairs" * ** (TEL) Minister of Defense - "Minister of Defense" * (Syn) Minister of Defense - "Director of Acquisitions" * (Syn) High Government Advisor - "Executive Vice-President" ** Positions held simultaneously Other With his computer skills, Nicholas II was asked to create things for The Syndicate. Such as: (1) Their forum pip: http://i.imgur.com/WxyQP3h.gif (2) A video comically deriding UPN: https://vimeo.com/143090371 Sports Orbis Baseball League On the third of August 2015, the Partisans were established as the official baseball (OBL) team of the Tsardom of Russia. Its name is a reference to the fighting spirit exhibited by Russian (and other Slavic) denizens through its history, such as: the Red Guard, Anti-Nazi Partisans, and most notably the White Guard (being defenders of monarchy). The emblem of the Partisans has many touches of Russian symbolism - encompassed by the pro-monarchist usage of the crowned double-headed eagle, specifically that of Russia. Poklonskaya Stadion (Poklonskaya Stadium in English), is named after Natalia Poklonskaya, the then current Prosecutor General of the Republic of Crimea. After her speech upon taking office in the The Autonomous Republic of Crimea, she became an internet sensation in the realms of memes and anime. The pitcher of the Partisans bears her name. Each member of the team bear names of notable Russians (politicans, authors, composers, and artists), save for miss Poklonskaya. In order, the team's roster reads: ('''1') Natalia Poklonskaya, (2') Alex Zakharchenko, ('3) Pyotr Stolypin, (4') RF Ungern-Sternberg, ('5) Leo Tolstoy, (6') Igor Stravinsky, ('7) Fyodor Dostoyevsky, (8') Pyotr Tchaikovsky, ('9) Ilya Repin'' On the first day of the team's existence, 1.8M was invested by the state and on the fifth day, 3.8M. Further investments never came and now the team plays no games. However, Russia still prides itself on the members of The Partisans. 'Trivia'__FORCETOC__ * Nich returned to Orbis in 2016 as: JP Morgan * Nicholas II and his entire family were shot and bayoneted to death in 1918 in Yekaterinburg, Nicholas' third city in P&W. * Nicholas II was a co-founder of The Elysian League. * Nicholas II has held a government position in every alliance he has been in (post-reset). * All of Nicholas II's cities are named after real Russian cities that predate 1918, with each having specific significance to the Russian Empire, its wars, and/or Tsar Nicholas II himself. * A decent portion of all of his cities were key battles or sieges in the Crimean War. * Nicholas II makes sure to have his newest/latest city named Murmansk, as it was the last city founded by the Russian Empire. * His 10th city, Novoarkhangel'sk, was the capital of Russian-America, now Alaska. Its name means "New Archangel" - modern Sitka, Alaska. * Each one of Russia's wars were declared with the same 'war reason': https://youtu.be/CcDSFhpeRzc ("The Whole World Knows the Russian Soldier", a piece sung by the Russian army). Category:Nations in Europe